


The Crucifix

by balaurvestic



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Love/Hate, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 23:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10954854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balaurvestic/pseuds/balaurvestic
Summary: Riario hates himself to shudder, to the dimness in his eyes when he stays alone with himself. He hates his second, dark nature, and the first, weak-willed one; his past and future actions, and that constant confusion in the scorched remnants of his soul. He hates himself so much that... What did Da Vinci say? That it makes you want to open up your veins and rip it all out of yourself? Oh, but he's already tried this, and got nothing except a new wave of darkness and evil he sown upon the land in the name of God and his false Lieutenant on earth.





	The Crucifix

Riario hates himself. Was it since he realized that all the sacrifices made to find the damn book were vain, or since he killed his own mother - what's the difference? Does it even matter? He hates himself, he drowns in this hatred as in the black waters of the Tiber, he chokes on it and revels in it at the same time. He hates himself to a shudder, to the dimness in his eyes when he stays alone, face to face with himself and with that terrible void that lives inside him, draining all his strength and taking away the will to live. But he shares it with darkness - and this darkness is merciful, for it does not leave memories. They returned only by accident, instantly becoming an immortal source of nightmares, but before that they were sleeping peacefully, saving him from that terrible knowledge. Riario hated this darkness. But the light, weak-willed and pitiful, he hated even more - for not having finished everything, for not bringing it to the very end, for not having the strength to stop all this with a single strike of a blade when he found out the truth, for allowing himself to succumb to the manipulations of the Labyrinth again. He hated himself so very much that ... What did Da Vinci say? That it made you want to open up your veins and rip it all out of yourself? Oh, but he already tried! And this gave nothing but a new wave of darkness and evil that he sowed in the name of the Lord and his false Lieutenant on earth.

He almost cried out in horror, waking up next to the dead body of Sixtus, with a papal ring on his finger. He threw it away, as if it was hot and smeared with poison, capable of killing in seconds. On the neck of his father - the _Holy_ Father – is the ugly bloom of his fingers - his own fingers, which strangled his mother and nearly killed the one who loved him. Riario hid them with a light slide of a dagger, and the blood of the Pope crept on the floor. For a moment he reflected in it himself - not the Sword of the Lord, but the Monster of Italy, the embodiment of the worst that can be found in man.

He "investigated" the death of Sixtus for several days, while the cardinals, recovering from the shock hypocritically fast, tore a tidbit from each other like red harpies. Riario was beyond suspicion - no one had seen him, he had only recently returned to Rome, and the storm in Florence... those who took it seriously did not even think to question the loyalty of the papal nephew.

The number of cuts on his hands tripled. He did not yet think about taking his own life - not this time, however, for the damned Labyrinth will come and bring him back to the living again. With an empty look, not feeling any pain he watched the drops roll down the blade, the liquid darkness flow and envelop his skin, paint the bandages in scarlet ... he hated that he could not put the dagger in his own throat. Laura loved him, although he was not worthy of this love - he admired this woman, he praised her as a holy messenger of the Lord, forgiving to beloved and merciless to enemies... he could not hurt her with a refusal or death, not after all that had happened, not after everything she’s done for him. And maybe - maybe - he was a little bit dear to da Vinci. Those were only two people in the whole world, for whom his name was not an empty sound.

He inhales eastern herbs with the perseverance of the possessed, until everything blurs before his eyes, and then he silently chokes on tears, clenching his mouth with his fist. The weakness for which he despised himself - as a last atheist, as a puttana, the brutal Turks, the savages of the New World ...

If da Vinci saw him like this, Riario would prefer to die.

Da Vinci would have looked at him with sorrow - _with pity,_ \- he would have injected another muck – _medicine_ – in his vein, would have apologized for making a mistake, for missing the truth, and he would swear tirelessly to fix that, to find a way to repair his broken soul ... But Riario knew that the splinters could not be put together again.

Oh, he hated da Vinci so much... He hated the fact that he himself admired artista so much, that he believed in him so much, and for some reason, when he looked at him, it caused pain so strong that even the waters of the Dead Sea burned his eyes almost unnoticeably. He hammered the thought into his head, forced himself to think that this pain is just a jealousy for the freedom that artista thoughtlessly reveled in, for how easily he made decisions, obeying only himself. It just couldn’t be anything else - not with him, not in this case.

Riario hated him for the hope sown in a place where he once had a heart, for seeing right through him, for care, granted with no reason  
_I do not deserve it how you can see something good in me how can you believe in me  
_ for the fact that he only detached the inevitable. Because of all living beings - even considering late now Sixtus - he was least worthy of care.

There was only one explanation – it’s da Vinci. Behind it, like behind a screen or a carnival mask, he hid dozens of questions, already found answers and his own sincere misunderstanding.

He hated da Vinci with all his heart.

If da Vinci was shot at, Riario would have covered him with his own body without hesitation. And he would die for him a hundred more times, even it meant returning to Labyrinth and hellishly salty waters every time.

He's going crazy - _he's already gone, his mind split in two, right?_

He scrolls a single, muddled memory in his head, which miraculously broke through to him through a thick veil of darkness. Riario cradles it like a child fallen asleep after a long, loud night. It’s that first and only time when da Vinci called him by name. He is ripped in parts by pain – just as then - and he watches like through a bad glass, how da Vinci’s lips move, telling him to wake up; no pity, only understanding. He suffocates - and inhales the herbs again, and again, and again, to sleep until dawn in a blissful silence. Nightmares wake him up with the first rays of the sun, and damned da Vinci finishes them - _"Do it. Kill her. Close the circle. But not with a blade, use your hands, like you did with your flesh and blood. Close the circle."_

He keeps his back straight and his face indifferent and calm, only thanks to the willpower, hammered into consciousness for all these years.

And then, on the third day, da Vinci arrives to Rome.

Riario meets him at the door, like last time, and some part of his mind howls in horror, because Leo is broken, depressed and the look in his eyes is so ill, that all the words get stuck in his throat - Riario cannot bring himself to utter a single sound. He hardly swallows his saliva; it feels like sandpaper on his parched throat. For some reason, it seems to him that Da Vinci's grief is much worse, and Riario ... Riario is _not worthy_ to bother him with his own wounds.

They keep silence for an unacceptably long time.

"Count," Leo finally says, as if an eternity hasn’t passed since they sat in the Inca dungeons. Nostalgia is nauseating somewhere nearby.

"Artista," Riario answers hoarsely, barely pushing out the sounds.

_"I killed the Pope, da Vinci! I closed the circle!"_ His mind cries, but his face does not reflect it. He has no right for it.

The coolness of his own rooms seems like a sepulchral cold. Riario watches how Leo languidly and unemotionally chews the food, not feeling taste, and in his head a single phrase drums _"I closed the circle, I closed the circle, I closed ..."_

He deprived the lives of those who gave it to him, horror lives and shakes somewhere in the backyard of his consciousness, sealed tight, and Riario looks somewhere past Leonardo – he sees not swaying curtains embroidered with gold threads, but a swamping, pervasive emptiness, an eternal void.

"Lucrezia is dead," da Vinci says suddenly, and this like a whip brings him back to reality.

He doesn’t give a damn about Lucrezia, of course - he wanted to kill her himself once, when her value was exhausted, when she became a thorn in the rotten side of the conspiracy, when she scuffled into his plans with the stubbornness of a donkey. But Leonardo loved her. Riario looks into his eyes covered with a haze of pain ... and feels hatred. Sorrow and hatred at the same time, because this cagna, this puttana maledetta has died, and now Leo is suffering. Of all God's creations, Leo least of all deserved this.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, and he does not prevaricate. “I truly am.”

Da Vinci nods, accepting the answer, and pauses again, trying to drill a hole in the plate full of food ( _no meat, nothing that once had eyes, I remember, da Vinci)_ with his gaze only.

"I don’t know what I feel," artista pushes out words with difficulty, as if they are stuck somewhere in his chest. "It's ... painful, but not enough. I'm ashamed of this "not enough."

"It happens," Riario says colorlessly. "When you lose those you love."

_How could he know though?_

"But now it seems like I loved a ghost."

Riario shudders at these words and the unexpected strength that sounded in them. And it seems like Leo threw a huge load off his shoulders - as if the truth spoken out loud opened his eyes and gave him a new breath. And Riario again feels hatred - for the fact that he won’t dare to speak his own truth even in mind. He wants to die more than ever, even though a hellfire is waiting for him.

The next day he leads unquiet and a bit excited Da Vinci to the dead body of Sixtus. They are hardly allowed to come in, and they have to repeat like three times that the blasphemer-artist will not dare to defile the late pontiff with an autopsy. Riario’s hands shake when he opens the door and removes a snow-white coverlet.

Da Vinci examines the mutilated neck carefully, almost with respect - not because of real respect for the dead, of course, just not to ruin anything.

The drums in Riario's head intensify, he looks away from the corpse, he watches the artist's bent back from afar, and  
_I closed the circle, I closed ...  
_ Da Vinci is not their stupid healers who do not see most obvious things. He sees clear marks of strangulation like they were carved in marble, and he understands everything the very second.  His stricken, shocked glance, full of regret, turns to his former enemy.

Riario looks somewhere at one point, clenching his fists so tightly that blood almost spurts from under the crescents of his nails. Lord, how he hates himself, why da Vinci did not kill him then, why da Vinci did not abandon him, and now he knows, what if his darkness destroys him too, no-no-no-no-no-no, Lord, give me strength to finish it, just one strike, just one

_I closed the circle, I closed the circle, I_

The mantra turns into reality, lips move in a silent whisper - Riario shudders when he feels cold freezing hands on his arms. He shifts his gaze. Leo carefully straightens his trembling fingers.

Riario's back is unnaturally straight, as if he were crucified. His cross is his consciousness, his still small voice, hobnails are the Labyrinth and his own dark side, and da Vinci ... Da Vinci is his Spear of Destiny. A merciful death, and a blade that has reached his very heart.

" _I hate you so much, artista_ ," he wants to say, but he can’t, because it's a lie.

Leo embraces him cautiously, like a wild beast, and so tightly that it almost hurts, but only this proves that everything is real. Riario exhales, clings to da Vinci like a drowning man - he is shaking with silent sobs, but his eyes are dry. Walls of a glass cage break inside him with a loud clang, splinters dig into a clot of darkness – it howls and hides in a corner. And Leo doesn’t let go until the trembling ceases to the convulsive, ragged breaths.

"I’m sorry, Girolamo, I'm so sorry. It's my fault, I hurried too much, I'm sorry...” he whispers.

Riario perceives this as a background noise, and some part of his essence wants to die, only not to remember this experience of shame, not to remember how artista witnessed his weakness ... but at the same time he loses his load, his cross which pressured on his shoulders for years. There is no word "love" in his dictionary, because he doesn’t know how to love, but now, hugging da Vinci, he finally clearly understands: all this time he felt something very far from hatred.

Burned snatches of his soul can no longer be put together, even Leonardo’s brilliant mind can’t figure out a way to do it. But for the first time in a long, long time Girolamo begins to _breathe._


End file.
